| IMO | 9438066 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 66,084 GT |
| Length | 251.0 m |
| Beam | 32.2 m |
| Passenger capacity (double) | 1238 |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 1447 |
| Builder | Fincantieri |
| Hull number | 6194 |
| Launched | 2011 |
| Maiden voyage | 2011 |
| Operator | Oceania Cruises |
| Status | Active |
Overview
Marina was the ship that changed what Oceania Cruises was. Until 2011 the upper-premium line had operated only secondhand tonnage — the former Renaissance Cruises R-class ships it had built its reputation on. Marina, ordered in 2007 and delivered in January 2011, was Oceania's first newbuild and its first ship designed around its own idea: a mid-size vessel of 66,084 GT for 1,250 guests, styled like a country club and organised, above all, around food — with ten dining venues, the first hands-on cookery school at sea, and the first restaurant at sea named for master chef Jacques Pépin, the line's culinary director. With her sister Riviera she forms the Oceania class, still the core of the fleet a decade and a half on.
Key specifications
The dataset records 66,084 GT, a beam of 32.2 m, hull number 6194 at Fincantieri, a maximum capacity of 1,250 and launch and maiden voyage in 2011. Two of those figures need annotation. The capacity of 1,250 is, in her own article, her double-occupancy figure — 625 cabins and suites, 580-plus of them with private balconies — rather than a maximum with every berth filled. And the dataset length of 251.0 m does not match either her article's 238.35 m or her builder Fincantieri's datasheet figure of 239.3 m overall; the dataset figure is logged as a suspected error in the batch notes. Her article gives a speed of 20 knots, draught of 7.32 m, crew of 780, diesel-electric propulsion from Wärtsilä engines totalling about 42,000 kW, and a Marshall Islands registry at Majuro. Her keel was laid on 10 March 2009 and she was floated out on 4 April 2010 — so the dataset's "launched 2011" is her delivery and service-entry year, a common roster convention, rather than her float-out.
Design and construction
She was built at Fincantieri's Sestri Ponente yard at Genoa, Italy — the first of a two-ship order that represented a step-change in scale for both parties: Oceania's largest ships by a factor of two over the R class, and a prestige upper-premium contract for Fincantieri. The design, by Yran & Storbraaten with interiors in a residential, country-club idiom, deliberately avoided the mega-ship vocabulary of its era: eleven passenger decks, no waterslides, a Lalique grand staircase, Owner's Suites furnished with Ralph Lauren Home pieces, and marble-and-granite bathrooms throughout. The engineering was conventional for a premium newbuild of 2010 — twin electric motors on fixed-pitch propellers, bow and stern thrusters, fin stabilisers — sized for worldwide itineraries rather than any single trade.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
Floated out at Sestri Ponente on 4 April 2010 and completed on 19 January 2011, she sailed on her maiden voyage on 22 January 2011, a 13-day crossing from Barcelona to Miami. She was formally named at Miami on 5 February 2011 by the American television presenter Mary Hart. The name Marina — a harbour for pleasure craft — fitted Oceania's chosen register of elegant, nautical, single-word names (Regatta, Insignia, Nautica) while marking the new class with a fresh coinage rather than a recycled fleet name.
Career by operator
| Years | Name | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 2011– | Marina | Oceania Cruises |
She has served a single operator under a single name throughout. Within the Oceania fleet her role has been constant: one of the two flagships around which the line's food-led, destination-intensive proposition was built, sailing worldwide alongside Riviera while the smaller R-class ships — later joined and partly replaced by the Allura-class newbuilds of the 2020s — handled the rest of the programme. Her ownership background shifted with her parent company's: ordered under Prestige Cruise Holdings, she passed with Oceania into Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings in 2014, but the ship's own operation has been unbroken Oceania service.
Onboard character
Marina's era-defining idea was the ship as restaurant row. Ten dining venues, all but the speciality wine room included in the fare and most without surcharge, was a radical allocation of space in 2011: a grand dining room, Pépin's French restaurant Jacques, the Asian Red Ginger, a steakhouse, an Italian venue, a casual terrace and more, capped by La Reserve for wine-pairing dinners. The Bon Appétit Culinary Center — 24 fully equipped workstations where guests cook under chef instruction — was the first hands-on cookery school at sea, and the Artist Loft and Canyon Ranch spa extended the same enrichment-led logic. In design-historical terms she is the prototype of the "foodie ship": proof that a mid-size hull could compete on cuisine and space ratio — over 52 GT per guest — rather than attractions.
Major refits and incidents
Marina has been maintained with Oceania's rolling refurbishment programme for the class, including the fleetwide OceaniaNEXT upgrades announced for the line's ships at the end of the 2010s, which renewed staterooms and public spaces on the R-class and Oceania-class alike. No fire, grounding, collision or other major incident is recorded for her in the sources used for this guide.
Sister ships and class
The Oceania class (also called the O class) comprises exactly two ships: Marina (2011) and Riviera (2012), built as Fincantieri hulls 6194 and 6195 at Sestri Ponente to the same design, with Riviera measuring a fraction larger at 66,172 GT. An option for a third ship was declined — a decision that shaped Oceania's fleet for a decade, until the larger Allura class arrived in the 2020s as the design's eventual successor.
Fate and where she is now
She is an active Oceania Cruises ship, her status confirmed in the dataset and her own article, and remains — with Riviera — one of the two defining hulls of the line: the first ship Oceania ever built for itself, and still among the most influential premium-cruise designs of her generation.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Marina; https://www.fincantieri.com/globalassets/prodotti-servizi/navi-da-crociera/oceania/scheda_oceania_marina_riviera.pdf